The only complaint I can really level against Frakes and Sirtis in this episode is... well the years haven't been kind to them and it's hard for them to sell themselves as season 7 Troi and Riker ten years after the fact, especially Riker. That's not their fault at all, people get older after all.

Attacking them personally as if this train wreck of an episode is their fault is petty at best. Poor form there. If you want to assign blame, assign it to the ones who thought it would be a great idea to end Enterprise on a TNG crossover... Rick Berman and Brannon Braga.

The best thing I can say about TATV... is it was nice to see Troi and Riker, even if it was a reminder that the glory days of Trek were gone and will never be again. This might have made an interesting episode mid season in some fashion maybe.... but to make it the finale? The finale should've been a celebration of Enterprise's four years... not having a couple TNG guest stars steal the show, quite literally.

No, no, you see -- Picard, who never really left the Nexus, is the camera POV in this episode. He imagined Riker and Troi as they observe the Enterprise crew. He was slightly off about how they looked since he's been in the Nexus for so long. Oh, and Picard killed of Trip in his mind because he didn't like his accent. So none of the final episode really happened.

I don't think anyone bought that the whole episode was supposed to have taken place during "The Pegasus"; the episode could have easily taken place on the Titan - make it Galaxy-class if you want to - and say Riker was having trouble adjusting to command after 15 + years as a first officer.

If it had been a Valentine to the fans, the story would have been about the actual crew instead of holograms of them where the only "real" people were Riker and Troi. It was a self-glorifying Valentine to the Berman years. Sort of like getting a "love letter" from Blue Velvet's Frank Booth.

Frank Booth said:

. . .I'll send you a love letter, straight from my heart, fr! You know what a love letter is? It's a bullet from a fg gun, fr! You receive a love letter from me, you're fd forever! You understand, fk? I'll send you straight to hell, fr!